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Publishers Make Plans for Devices Yet to Come

Five major magazine and newspaper publishers announced plans on Tuesday to build an industry-standard platform to present their work on the Web, smartphones and electronic readers in a richer, more flexible and more lucrative form than is possible today.

The consortium of Time Inc., Condé Nast, the Hearst Corporation, Meredith and the News Corporation does not lack for ambition, hoping to create software primarily for devices that do not yet exist — cellphones that are somewhat more advanced than anything now on the market, and e-readers far more sophisticated than today’s mostly static black-and-white devices.

The unnamed venture, whose outlines were reported last month, was originally envisioned as being mostly about magazines, though John Squires, who will serve as interim general manager, says the final product will work for newspapers, books and other media, as well. He said that he could not offer a guess as to when the project would have a product, but that when sophisticated, full-color e-readers reach the market, “we need to have an application or experience that is beautiful for readers.”

James McQuivey, a media analyst at Forrester Research, said of the venture: “It’s very speculative right now, but what they’re trying to do is plant a flag in the ground, and say, as e-readers evolve, don’t forget that magazines are different from books.”

Time Inc. has released a video giving some idea of what it has in mind — a full-color, touch-screen digital version Sports Illustrated that readers would find not only more attractive than what is now available on most mobile devices, but also vastly more interactive and adaptable to their tastes.

The consortium envisions selling these versions of their publications through an online store akin to iTunes from Apple. The hope, Mr. Squires said, who has been executive vice president of Time Inc., is to grab not just readers but also advertisers, allowing publishers to charge higher rates for digital ads, which now are much cheaper than print ads.

Mr. McQuivey questioned the wisdom of using the new software to charge for magazines, saying it might not be enough of an improvement over the free experiences available online.

The five partners own the venture — they have not disclosed how much they have invested — but they hope to recruit other publishers to use the software they develop. Time, Condé Nast, Hearst and Meredith are among the largest magazine publishers in the world; Hearst and Condé’s parent, Advance Publications, also have large newspaper chains. The News Corporation is a major newspaper and book publisher and also has extensive television holdings.

A version of this article appears in print on December 9, 2009, on page B3 of the New York edition with the headline: Publishers Make Plans For Devices Yet to Come. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe